Making a mess in the kitchen

Nosugar Cookies

INTERNET, I have some fantastic news. These cookies, and yes they are cookies, they don’t have any added SUGAR in them. Nor are they cookies that say “no sugar” but then you find they’ve got some sort of sugar substitute in them–like at Jamba Juice when I got tricked into ordering an “all-fruit, no sugar added” smoothie and I was all, well FINALLY, that’s how I’d make it for myself anyway, let’s try this out! and then in leeeettle bitty letters below the menu there was an asterisk that said something about *no sugar, yeah, but like, a whole lotta Splenda up in this piece, and I literally had to shout at the Jamba Juice lady and be like OH GOD I CHANGED MY MIND I DO NOT WANT THAT, and she was like, child has bipolar disease! and i was like, no ma’am, just understand, I fucking HATE SUGAR SUBSTITUTE I HATE IT AND I DON’T CARE IF YOU THINK I CAN’T TELL THE DIFFERENCE I SO CAN SO LET ME HATE IT because I truly do. And don’t put any boosts in there either, those things taste like poison. Let the boosts go hang out with broccoli rabe and splenda where they can talk about how much it sucks to taste like poison all the god damned time.

But anyway. Neither do these cookies have honey or maple syrup or agave or any other NATURAL sugar substitute. They have in them: bananas. Sure, bananas are pretty much pure sugar (and starch but also! so much potassium!) but using a fruit to sweeten a cookie has never occurred to me before. And it WORKS. These cookies are sweet! Pleasantly sweet! Might I even say?–yes, I dare–PERFECTLY sweet.

And they don’t have a lot of fat in them either. There’s a minimal amount of oil and then the rest of it comes from the almond meal and coconut. So it’s like, decently good for you fat. Stay with me here.

I am a proponent of these cookies. If these cookies were running for office I would be passing out fliers for these cookies. It’s like eating a bowl of oatmeal with bananas in it! Aaaand, I mean, chocolate chips. But chocolate is pretty good for you, at least dark chocolate, right all those super accurate studies that tell me this and also give me permission to drink red wine and coffee?? So really what I’m SAYING to you here is I give you full permission to make these and eat them for breakfast, which is what I when I made them for my sister and parents. Ma and pa are visiting from the east coast and we’ve been giving them the full bay area food treatment, so I thought, why NOT do cookies for breakfast? Let’s go whole hog if we’re going to hog at all. And we’ve been going hog, my friends.

Heidi: You can use unsweetened carob, or grain sweetened chocolate chips, or do what I did and chop up 2/3 of a bar of Scharffen berger 70%. I sort-of shaved half the bar with a knife and then cut the rest into bigger chip-sized chunks. You can make your own almond meal by pulsing almonds in a food processor until it is the texture of sand – don’t go too far or you’ll end up with almond butter. And lastly, the coconut oil works beautifully here, just be sure to warm it a bit – enough that it is no longer solid, which makes it easier to incorporate into the bananas. If you have gluten allergies, seek out GF oats.

In a large bowl combine the bananas, vanilla extract, and coconut oil. Set aside. In another bowl whisk together the oats, almond meal, shredded coconut, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks/chips.The dough is a bit looser than a standard cookie dough, don’t worry about it. Drop dollops of the dough, each about 2 teaspoons in size, an inch apart, onto a parchment (or Silpat) lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 – 14 minutes. I baked these as long as possible without burning the bottoms and they were perfect – just shy of 15 minutes seems to be about right in my oven.

These were superb! I made half without the chocolate so my daughter could eat them, and half with chocolate for me!
Just wondering if anyone knows the approximate calorie count for a cookie.
Thanks so much for the recipe!

I used smart oil and flax (not almond) meal. It was disappointing that they didn’t have a “cookie texture.” They were however very tasty. They didn’t keep particularly as well as my other Christmas cookies.

I just made these for about the 10th time, and they’re always amazing. <3 Thanks so much for posting the recipe!
@chalynda, It's finely ground almonds. I bought mine at publix, but I had to ask someone for help in finding it. The brand I found is Bob's Red Mill, and it was in the organic section. You could try a health food store too, I've seen it there as well :) (Also, I'm pretty sure you could get it online in the worst case scenario.)

OMG I think I love you. Of course the jury is out. I’ll be trying your recipes. I have tried the vegan thing but as a southern country girl this was a flop plus VERY pricey. I, because of my eating habits have the privilege of Diabeties & we won’t even talk about the lard surrounding my 5’2″ body. So I have a sweet tooth that has no shame. Naturally I am trying to do the right thing by eating right. I was sold on you when you commented on all of the substitute sweeteners.